Yet 24 hours later, Republican leaders started floating compromises in order to pass the Senate bill.

Yes Tom, you are feeling the pressure.

Roll Call reports that House Rules Committee Chair Pete Sessions “said the five-month extension could serve as a partner for House-passed bills and other priorities, such as a permanent extension of so-called bonus depreciation for business investment.”

And the House Majority Deputy Whip Pete Roskam “said no decision had been reached on add-ons, but that some lawmakers were floating ideas. ‘There’s a lot of discussion of merging UI to this or to that, energy and other things,’ Roskam said.”

This is not the talk of people who aren’t feeling pressure.

Republicans may have the whip hand going into the 2014 midterm elections, but that also means they don’t want to lose it by making dumb mistakes — like letting challengers hammer them to failing to pass a bipartisan bill that helps those trying to find work and doesn’t increase the deficit. Or angering local business leaders who care more about their tax breaks than partisan point-scoring — meeting Democrats halfway on helping the struggling middle-class is the only way help for business owners is going to happen.

Republicans, who want you to think they take terrorism more seriously than President Obama because they like to say "radical Islam," are playing games with the money to protect us from terrorist attacks.

Tom Edsall at The New York Times argues that the Democrats should be worried because of "how far the Republican Party has traveled." But let's not overstate the case.

About Bill Scher

Bill Scher is the Online Campaign Manager at Campaign for America's Future, and the executive editor of LiberalOasis.com. He is the author of Wait! Don't Move To Canada!: A Stay-and-Fight Strategy to Win Back America, a regular contributor to Bloggingheads.tv and host of the LiberalOasis Radio Show weekly podcast. He has opinion articles that have been published by the New York Times, Minneapolis Star Tribune and Omaha World-Herald, and has made appearances on CNN, MSNBC and NPR among other TV and radio outlets.